Clark Griswold's Christmas Vacation Is Laced With Disaster

My boyfriend Will and I immersed ourselves in a multitude of Christmas movies this past holiday season, and since we watched some of them alone and some with my parents or a friend, a couple flicks got covered twice. One of those was the wacky 1989 classic National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

Along with A Christmas Story, this is the movie I most often see referenced by people whose stomachs turn at the steady trickle of treacle provided by so many holiday films. I’m a sucker for sap, so I never mind, but I can see how this movie written by John Hughes and directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik would appeal to those who consider Christmas primarily a hassle.

As he does in several other movies in the series, Chevy Chase stars as lovable schmuck Clark Griswold. Clark just loves Christmas, and he’s over-the-moon excited that he finally gets to host a big celebration of his own. His level-headed wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) and embarrassed kids Rusty (Johnny Galecki) and Audrey (Juliette Lewis) aren’t so thrilled. Not only do they have to deal with his impractical extravagance, they must navigate the inconveniences posed by two sets of grandparents and an uninvited redneck cousin.

I’m always one to cringe at wanton mayhem, so I’m not wild about all the destructive sequences in this movie, though some of them do make me laugh. As an animal lover, there is one scene in particular that I find distasteful, and as obnoxious as they are, I do feel a little sorry for the neighbors played by Nicholas Guest as Seinfeld’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as they most often fall victim to Clark’s tinkering. From the oversized tree and the malfunctioning lights to the super-powered sled and the Christmas Eve hostage crisis, just about every mishap in this movie is a result, directly or indirectly, of Clark’s tendency toward excess.

Yet it is that youthful enthusiasm that makes him such a lovable character. Clark adores his family and still finds Christmastime magical. He wants everyone to share in the joy that he feels. As his big plans go further and further off the rails, he goes off the deep end, but it’s hard to imagine how anyone could do otherwise in that situation. Hence, while almost everything goes wrong in this movie, it doesn’t really feel like a cynical response to Christmas.

Clark’s heart is as expansive as his yard display, as the scenes he shares with little Ruby Sue (the adorable Ellen Hamilton Latzen) show especially well. Similarly, Randy Quaid brings a lot of sweetness to the role of Ruby Sue’s loose cannon of a dad, Eddie. He may cause everyone a heap of headaches, but in a pinch, he’s an awfully loyal friend.

I wouldn’t list this movie among my Christmas favorites, but it definitely has its own oddball charm, and I’ve little doubt that I will check in with the Griswolds during Decembers yet to come.

The Homecoming Introduces the Waltons to the World

Growing up, I watched The Waltons occasionally, though never enough to feel a deep sense of familiarity with the characters. Still, I found the homespun charm of the show endearing and was intrigued when my boyfriend Will suggested watching The Homecoming, the movie that started it all.

The television movie features the same cast of children as the series, along with the same grandma. The most noticeable cast difference is that Olivia Walton, the mother of the large family, is played by Patricia Neal. Aside from John-Boy, who is portrayed by gangly, lovable Richard Thomas, Olivia is the character given the most attention as she struggles to mask her anxiety over her husband’s late return from an out-of-town job on Christmas Eve.

Like many Christmas movies, this is a heartwarming tale of family togetherness. The hardscrabble setting of a farm during the Depression makes the economy a major source of conflict. These are good salt-of-the-earth people who must work tirelessly and support each other in order to survive. While the driving concern in the film is why John is late and whether he is all right, it also deals with the children’s individual fears and frustrations, particularly John-Boy’s desire to strike out on his own and become a writer and Mary-Ellen’s (Judy Norton) teen angst.

The heart of the special is in the family, particularly the close-knit but chaotic ensemble of the seven children. While the Waltons are simple people trying to scrape out a living, they still have hopes and dreams, and the children have plenty of silliness in them. Kami Cotler is particularly adorable as the tiny Elizabeth, whose innocent remarks rarely fail to elicit laughter.

The movie also deals with various other members of the community, the most colorful of which are the mildly batty Baldwin sisters Mamie (Josephine Hutchinson) and Emily (Dorothy Stickney), elderly spinsters who sustain themselves by selling their father’s famous bootleg whiskey. One of the best scenes in the movie involves John-Boy and vivacious preacher Hawthorne Dooley (Cleavon Little) attempting to coax a favor out of these feisty ladies. Hawthorne, incidentally, is strikingly contrasted with a sanctimonious missionary whose attempt to minister to the local children is both comical and nightmarish.

Anyone who enjoyed The Waltons should have a look at this movie that launched the series, even if it is a bit odd to see some of the familiar characters played by different actors. The spirit of the series is certainly present in this tale of individuals in hard times doing what they must to make it and helping each other to do the same. Based on the author’s own childhood experience, this wholesome yarn is ideal for cozy Christmastime viewing.

A Lonely Girl Reaches Out to Her Father in The House Without a Christmas Tree

I have always been very fond of Christmas movies and specials, but this year I am becoming aware of how many I have missed over the years. Last night, I watched The House Without a Christmas Tree, a 1972 television special that my boyfriend Will especially likes. About an hour long, it deals with a small family striving for a Christmas miracle of which the titular tree is only a symbol.

It’s 1946, and 10-year-old Addie (Lisa Lucas), a precocious girl with spectacles and long, braided brown hair, decides that she would really love to have a tree this Christmas, even though she is reluctant to admit how much this long-neglected tradition tugs at her. She lives with her practical but warm-hearted grandmother (Mildred Natwick), who is the most attentive adult in her life. Addie also receives support from her sweet-natured fifth-grade teacher, Miss Thompson (Kathryn Walker), which makes her eager to lead the class effort to buy her an extra-special Christmas present.

Unfortunately, the person she most longs to connect with remains consistently distant. Her father Jamie (Jason Robards) is stingy with his money, which is frustrating for a lively child but understandable for someone who lived through the Depression not long ago. What’s more demoralizing is his stinginess with his time. Jamie rarely converses with Addie or engages in any kind of quality activity with her, and most of his interactions with her are brusque and disapproving. Addie wants a tree to bring light and life into a drab home, but what she really wants is a relationship with her father.

All three leads do a wonderful job in establishing the characters as individuals of depth and real human emotion. Lucas brings an intellectual but angsty quality to her performance, revealing hues of sweetness and dejection at being so disregarded by the most important person in her young life. Natwick’s is a maternal presence, and while her performance is subtler, we also see the emotion bottled up behind a stoic veneer.

Of the three, the only one I was previously familiar with was Robards, and he is excellent as a man who has retreated into himself in the aftermath of tragedy. He speaks little, except when he is pushed to point of a frightening outburst, but his craggy visage says a great deal. The change that occurs within this weary widower over the course of the special is not so dramatic as Ebenezer Scrooge’s but is deeply touching nonetheless.

Adding to the charm of the tale are the flannelgraph-style illustrations that punctuate the action and the cute sub-plot about Addie’s love-hate relationship with classmate Billy Wild (Brady McNamara), which shadows her relationship with her dad in some ways. The historical setting is also fun and most noticeable through the girls’ dresses and Addie’s constant use of the word “nifty,” along with the difference in prices that makes a shop owner’s kind gesture considerably more significant than it would seem by today’s standards.

At just over an hour in length, The House Without a Christmas Tree doesn’t take long to watch, and its heartfelt tale still has the time needed to let its events unfold gradually. A stirring story of reconciliation, it celebrates the beauty of traditional Christmas trappings but, more than that, of a family whose members truly appreciate, respect and make merry with one another.

Celebrate Halloween and Christmas With Ichabod and Mr. Toad

The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow are two classic pieces of literature, but I wouldn’t have thought to put them together. Disney did, though, and the result was the 1949 package film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. It’s unusual in that it tells just two stories; the package films typically include several different segments, each of which is shorter than either tale told here. What it amounts to is about half an hour per story, so there’s room for some decent development even though neither one is individually of feature length.

The main thematic tie between the stories seems to be that they are literary classics, one from England, one from America. Other similarities can be found; for instance, both integrally involve a holiday and a horse-drawn cart. Mostly, though, the tie between the two is that these are books that could be sitting on the shelf next to each other. Basil Rathbone is the sophisticated narrator of the first part of the film, which focuses on the reckless Mr. Toad, and his warm voice is perfectly suited to the task. Bing Crosby feels like less of a natural narrator for the second half, which deals with Ichabod Crane, but the role allows him to do some singing, which is the task at which he really shines.

I prefer the first tale, which is much livelier, in part because each of the characters is played by a different actor and there is quite a bit of dialogue. Toads seem to be inherently troublesome creatures, more so than frogs, which have a bit of a reputation in fiction for steady dependability. After all, look at Kermit the Frog (at least, when he’s not blowing a gasket). The contrast is strongest in Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad series, and silly, sulky Toad with his peculiar whims would certainly have a kindred spirit in Mr. Toad. They’re not bad fellows, but trouble seems to follow them, and sometimes they bring it upon themselves.

The story of Mr. Toad is set in the idyllic English countryside, where the eccentric millionaire is constantly wreaking havoc with his dangerous obsessions. It’s up to his faithful, long-suffering friends to keep him out of trouble and to try to prove his innocence after he runs afoul of the law. Toad is rather obnoxious but lovable nonetheless. Severe Angus MacBadger (Campbell Scott), who oversees his affairs, is a fun character, particularly because of his pronounced Scottishness, but he is less prominent than the even-keeled Rat (Claud Allister) or my favorite character, mild-mannered Mole (Colin Campbell). Other characters, including Mr. Toad’s horse and a freakish-looking villain named Mr. Winky, come into the picture, but this is the core quartet. It’s a raucous romp and a touching story of friendship set partially against the beauty of a pristine English Christmas, and it’s quite satisfying.

I’m not quite as fond of Ichabod’s story, partly because it’s just plain creepy. It makes me chuckle that in a film that includes a Christmas story, Crosby, who is so associated with the upcoming holiday, narrates the tale set at Halloween. It also strikes me as funny that the Christmas story comes first. The animation of a fiery New England autumn is quite appealing, but the human characters aren’t quite as enjoyable to look at as the animals in the first story. Ichabod in particular is a bit goofy-looking, though this would not necessarily be a drawback if he were a more likable character. Unfortunately, this gangly schoolteacher is a lazy womanizing glutton who can’t wait to hitch his wagon to the richest girl in town so he can live like a king for the rest of his days. Hence, although he’s the protagonist, he doesn’t exactly inspire a great deal of affection from me. It doesn’t help that there’s so little actual dialogue in this story, and what’s there is mostly voiced by Crosby. This makes the characters in this segment feel much more distant, leading to a definite sense of detachment.

The meat of the story is the rivalry between Ichabod and burly Brom Bones, who both want the pretty heiress Katrina Van Tassel for a wife, though love doesn’t seem to be a factor for either of them. They both appear to see her as more of a prize than a person. Brom reminds me a lot of Gaston from Disney’s much later Beauty and the Beast except that he is not quite so immensely popular. Still, he makes a potent adversary, and his dramatic ghost story is enough to give Ichabod a major case of the heebie-jeebies. Me too. The headless horseman scene that follows is truly terrifying, no matter what your interpretation of the incident is.

I’m not sure that this is the most natural pair of stories to put together, but it works well enough, and each is memorable in its own way. While I personally don’t want anything to do with Sleepy Hollow except around Halloween, I’m happy to pay a visit to Mr. Toad any time of year.

Torontonians Find Joy in a Depression-Era Christmas in Booky and the Secret Santa

This week, while browsing Netflix, I came upon the Booky series of TV movies based upon the books by Bernice Thurman Hunter. I watched the last one first, then proceeded to Booky and the Secret Santa, which came out in 2007. The children in this G-rated slice of historical fiction directed by Peter Moss are noticeably a bit younger, but they look mostly the same, and whatever characters are in both movies are portrayed by the same actors. This movie is set in December, and I presume it’s supposed to be about nine months before Booky’s Crush.

While times are lean in Booky’s Crush, the sense of monetary crisis is even more acute in Booky and the Secret Santa. Toronto is teetering on the brink of Depression, and Thomas Thomson (Stuart Hughes), a hardworking harness maker, is out of a job as the company employing him switches over to using motorized vehicles. That’s bad news for the whole family, especially his daughter Booky (Rachel Marcus), whose best friend Laura Westover (Emilia McCarthy) is the daughter of a woman one character describes as a “social-climbing nobody.” Uppity Mrs. Westover (Nahanni Johnstone) doesn’t want her daughter hanging around with a girl whose family is practically impoverished. All Booky wants is the freedom to enjoy her friend’s company and enough money to make a nice Christmas like those to which she is accustomed.

I found the class dynamics at play in this movie interesting, and I love the Christmassy setting. It often seems to be the case that remarkable things occur around Christmas, and that’s what Booky is hoping will happen here. Unlike her practical teenage sister Willa (Sarah White) and angsty older brother Arthur (Dylan Everett), Booky has not yet entirely let go of the possibility that Santa Claus could exist. She doesn’t believe in him with the fervor displayed by her little brother Jakey (Noah Ryan Scott), who is desperate for a red trike, but she still thinks he might be out there somewhere. In fact, he might be living among her friends and neighbors, and they don’t even know it.

The most dynamic side character this time around is Mrs. Westover, who comes across as incredibly shallow and persnickety. One of the chief questions of the movie is whether she is capable of genuine friendship or whether every friendly gesture she makes is merely a means to an end. Silent sparks fly when she and Booky’s mother Francie, a spunky woman played by Megan Follows of Anne of Green Gables fame, are in the same room. Through the adults, we see the struggles that typified the late 1920s and early 1930s, while the children, particularly Booky and Laura, demonstrate the joy and hope that the season can bring even in the darkest times.

Johnstone is exquisitely annoying in her role, but the best addition to the cast this time around is Kenneth Welsh as Mr. Eaton, the kindly owner of one of Canada’s most prominent retailers. He and Booky, whom he affectionately calls “Little Bluebird” because of her vibrant winter coat, forge a friendship after she gets a job distributing nut samples outside her aunt’s store. He is a regular customer, and he finds her cheerful and inquisitive nature a delight. Booky, inspired in part by a comic book about a detective with a dual identity, begins to wonder if her elderly friend with the twinkle in his eye could actually be Santa. And if he is, might he be able to help the Thomsons have a merry Christmas after all? Walsh is wonderful in the role, especially whenever he lets loose with a rumbly laugh that sounds suspiciously like a “Ho ho ho,” and he and Marcus have quite a sweet rapport.

While the time period matters in Booky’s Crush, I would say that it’s even more significant in this movie, which shows more broadly the effects of the economic downturn as well as the creative ways that people dealt with it. Some of the Christmassy aspects of the film are most endearing. My favorite seasonal moment comes when a neighbor girl comes by, pulled on a makeshift sleigh hitched up to several children tied together and sporting twig-antlers on their heads. It just goes to show that you don’t need a lot of money or fancy gadgets to have a good time.

While I loved Booky’s Crush, I think I enjoyed Booky and the Secret Santa even more. Although one would be most inclined to watch it near Christmas, this story of friendship and optimism makes for great viewing any time of year.

Thomas Kinkade Finds Himself as an Artist in The Christmas Cottage

My brother Nathan is a senior in college majoring in Painting. He loves a lot of artists, but Thomas Kinkade, whose warm and fuzzy, light-infused landscape paintings are a staple at the calendar kiosk where I work this time of year, is not one of them. Still, I think that he would appreciate The Christmas Cottage, the 2008 film that loosely chronicles one memorable Christmas in the life of a college-aged Kinkade.

In this feel-good movie written by Ken LaZebnik and directed by Michael Campus, Jared Padalecki plays Thomas, who has returned to his tiny hometown for Christmas break and is shocked to discover that his mother (Marcia Gay Harden) is so far in debt that she is about to lose her cottage. Though Thomas feels like a fish out of water, with a slight air of superiority when it comes to most of the townsfolk, he delves into an art project that he feels is beneath him in hopes that it will help pay his mother’s bill. What he needs to do is create a Christmassy mural to advertise for a local businessman. When he confesses his malaise to his mentor, neighbor Glenn Wessels (Peter O’Toole), this aged artist at the tail end of an illustrious career advises him to put forth his very best effort and use the job as an opportunity to honor his town and its residents.

We see the mural as a work in progress throughout the movie, and gradually, it gains more and more personality as Thomas decides to fill it with specific people who have meant a lot to him and to the town. As he paints, he struggles with the idea of finding his own distinct style. It isn’t until the last minute that he is inspired to add the light pouring through all the windows, that touch that has become his trademark. Thomas’s relationship with Glenn is the heart of the story, and O’Toole gives a heart-rending performance as a very talented man losing control of his faculties – both his mind and his all-important hands. Despite the hints of dementia creeping in, Glenn still is a great source of wisdom for his troubled young neighbor.

While painting is the main focus of the movie, there are several subplots. In the silliest, Thomas’s congenial brother Pat (Aaron Ashmore, who plays the adorable Jimmy Olsen on Smallville) takes a job for a man embroiled in a bitter battle with his neighbor over who has the best Christmas display. Mrs. Kinkade has her hands full trying to corral a chaotic assembly of townspeople for a nice Christmas pageant. Most notably, the family is thrown into a tizzy when Thomas and Pat’s long-absent father (Richard Burgi) shows up again, broke, sardonic and unrepentant for his lack of involvement in their life.

The Christmas Cottage probably isn’t one of those Christmas movies I’m going to watch repeatedly, but I’d certainly have no objection to watching it again with my brother to see what he thinks of it. It definitely feels like a Hallmark movie, though it isn’t really. As I tend to enjoy those sappy made-for-TV efforts, though, that doesn’t bother me. If you’re intrigued by Thomas Kinkade or art in general, it’s worth making a stop at The Christmas Cottage.

Join Larry for a Ride on the What-If Express in It's a Meaningful Life

VeggieTales is a Christian video series that has been entertaining and enriching me for the past 15 years, and when I saw that their latest DVD had a tie-in with Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, one of my favorite movies to watch this time of year, I was doubly interested. It’s a Meaningful Life is a 45-minute-long video containing one long story, which has been the norm for VeggieTales Christmas videos. The basic story is basically a mix of Wonderful Life, The Family Man and The Polar Express, with plenty of fun Veggie twists tossed in.

Larry the Cucumber plays the role of Stewart, the main character who is named for Jimmy Stewart and is married to Donna (Petunia), who is named after Donna Reed. Though VeggieTales has been pairing these two up ever since Duke and the Great Pie War several years ago, it was still a little weird for me to see Larry playing the part of a man who is married with kids, since he usually comes across as such a big kid himself. But his scenes with both Petunia and his children, especially little Emma, are very sweet.

Although Stewart has a good life as the owner of the toy train factory handed down to him by his father and a volunteer peewee football coach, he can’t stop thinking about that fateful day years ago when he almost won the team’s big game. Instead, his buddy Morty (Mr. Lunt) made the winning play and went on to superstardom. When Morty comes back for a visit, all those old feelings of bitterness threaten to overwhelm him. Who could blame him for feeling a little sorry for himself when his own son can’t stop going on about how great Morty is?

In the early days, VeggieTales videos tended to have fairly simple props and backdrops. One of the main reasons the characters were vegetables was because they were pretty easy to animate. But there have been major advances since then, and the setting for It’s a Meaningful Life is rich and complex, particularly the scenes that show us Stewart’s tiny town. The action shots of the What-If Express rambling through the countryside as the Northern Lights appear in the night sky are also pretty impressive.

With only 45 minutes, plus time taken out for framing scenes on the countertop and a silly song, this is a story that cuts right to the chase. Everything happens very quickly. We get Stewart’s youth, then we see him as a dad in the autumn, and then in the winter. After he gets on the train, which is a combination of the Polar Express and the mysterious journey that Clarence takes George on in Wonderful Life, with a dash of A Christmas Carol thrown in, he makes only two stops to see the “hypothetical” stemming from his “regrettable”. First, he sees what his own life would be like if he’d been the big football hero instead of Morty. Then he sees what things would be like for everyone else in his town. Unlike George, Stewart is merely an observer, and he is unable to interact with any of these figures, but seeing his hollow life as a cranky, self-absorbed celebrity and the ruin that has befallen his town and loved ones, he reconsiders his own lot In life.

My favorite element of the main story is probably Stewart’s relationship with his adorable young adopted daughter, which is very reminiscent of George’s relationship with Zuzu. The lullaby he sings for her is very tender, and it sets us up for the considerably less sedate Silly Song, which has Junior Asparagus extending his awake time for as long as possible by requesting that his increasingly exasperated mother bring him every stuffed animal he can think of. Some of the animals in his collection are funny in and of themselves, and Junior’s hyper antics are hilarious and will probably resonate with anyone who has ever attempted to get a young child to go to sleep. Stewart’s peppy song about giving 110 percent is pretty catchy too and reminds me of something that Fred MacMurray might have sung in The Happiest Millionaire or any number of old Disney movies in which he played an enthusiastic dad. Probably the song most firmly stuck in my head, though, despite barely understanding a word of the lyrics, is the trippy commercial that first Morty and then Alternate Stewart records. It’s sung incredibly quickly, with a comparable barrage of goofy 2-D images, and the point is to show us how these characters have sold out by recording these obnoxious ads for products they don’t believe in.

Of VeggieTales’ four Christmas releases, this is the one that feels the least Christmassy, as quite a bit of it doesn’t take place at Christmas. There’s nothing on the countertop or in the Silly Song indicative of Christmas either. With so much of it involving football, it might feel just as seasonal in September. I suppose that the climax didn’t actually need to take place at Christmas, but it allows for more fun parallels with the above-mentioned movies. This video will probably entertain you most if you’ve seen any or all of those, but It’s a Meaningful Life is meaningful even if you don’t get all the little references to Christmastime classics, and I can’t wait to see what VeggieTales will come up with next.

Carface Remembers He Has a Heart in An All Dogs Christmas Carol

I was browsing around Netflix yesterday when I discovered that there was an All Dogs Go to Heaven Christmas movie – and that, even better, it was available to watch online. While I raised an eyebrow over the existence of this second sequel to the animated Don Bluth film about a rough-and-tumble dog with a heart of gold, I loved the original, so I figured it would be worth a shot. As I expected, An All Dogs Christmas Carol is a cute enough, if wholly unnecessary, adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic.

After the second (rather abysmal) All Dogs Go to Heaven movie, there was evidently a television series starring these characters, and I get the sense that this movie is in line with that series. It doesn’t seem to pick right up from where the movie left off; I tried not to remember too much about that shoddy sequel, but there seemed to be some continuity issues that maybe could have been ironed out through the TV series. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt there. Still, this movie, at a scant hour and fifteen minutes in length, basically screams “quick moneymaker” to me. It’s nothing but a retelling of A Christmas Carol, and considering the fact that the original movie was a fairly powerful story of redemption itself, giving us another redemption story here that is such an obvious rip-off doesn’t feel nearly as compelling. I mean, you could take any number of shows or movies and make the resident grouchiest / meanest character into Scrooge and use side characters as the ghosts who help him or her recover the Christmas spirit. It’s been done over and over again. One of my all-time favorite television episodes, M*A*S*H’s Dear Sis, has an element of A Christmas Carol about it. But it isn’t just a straightforward rehash, which this is.

The villainous canine gangster Carface (Ernest Borgnine) is up to his old tricks. This time, he’s got a magical gizmo that hypnotizes any dog within hearing range, allowing him to make out like a bandit when they march up to him in a daze and give him all their stuff. He and his faithful assistant, Killer (Charles Nelson Reilly), have had it with these little gigs, though. They want to pull off something truly impressive, so Carface makes a deal with the devil, or at least a truly demonic canine named Belladonna (Bebe Neuwirth). If he holds up his end of the bargain, Christmas will be ruined forever. But Charlie (Steven Weber, the third actor to voice the character), his ladylove Sasha (Sheena Easton) and his best friend Itchy (Dom DeLuise) have a plan to stop Carface. With some help from another magical gizmo, this one provided by goody-two-shoes angel Annabelle (Neuwirth), they will take a page out of Dickens’ book and try to show Carface the error of his ways.

Charlie literally hits upon the idea of essentially reenacting A Christmas Carol, so the plot is derivative even within the world of the movie. And for as vile as Carface is – much worse, really, than Scrooge, who was cranky and cold but didn’t go around trying to kill people – it sure doesn’t take long for his heart to start melting. It happens a little too quickly. Then again, I got whiplash from him going back and forth between feeling really emotional over what he was seeing and closing himself off and flying into a violent rage.

I did rather like the first two segments, though. The Christmas Past part features the only decent song in the movie, in which he sadly remembers the little boy he loved who always made excuses for his bad behavior until, one fateful Christmas, he didn’t. Which, he realizes, is why he hates Christmas so much, not to mention why he would rather use others than get attached to them. In the Christmas Present section, I love the fact that Sasha guides Carface while dressed as Santa Lucia – especially since I happened to watch it on Santa Lucia Day. The Christmas Future part, usually so terrifying and desolate, is the weakest of the three, with an annoying centerpiece of Charlie singing a gospel-tinged song about how Carface has to mend his ways.

As with A Christmas Carol - as well as All Dogs Go to Heaven - it’s a youngster in trouble who is really the deciding factor in bringing about the change in heart. In this case, it’s a puppy with a bum leg who reminds Carface of his younger self. That element is sweet enough, though one wonders why Anne Marie, the little girl he abused in the first movie, didn’t have the same sort of effect on him. Additionally, it’s not enough for Carface to awake on Christmas morning wanting to be a better dog. No, he has to decide whether or not to participate in the nefarious plan that seemed so appealing to him hours before, and this aspect of the movie is pretty goofy, since he keeps changing his mind as to whether or not to throw the all-important switch that will hypnotize every dog in San Francisco.

A Christmas Carol is a powerful story, so even though this is nowhere near the best version I have seen, it’s still reasonably touching from time to time. And it’s certainly not the worst version out there. But this is one edition of A Christmas Carol I don’t expect to turn into a Christmas tradition.

Bob and Larry Tell a Fascinating Tale of Saint Nicholas

I love the VeggieTales computer-animated video series, and usually when the latest video comes out, I’m right on top of getting it. But somehow, last year’s Saint Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving fell by the wayside last year, and it’s only now that I’ve finally seen the third VeggieTales Christmas release. I am now free to declare It incredibly entertaining, not to mention educational.

Like The Toy That Saved Christmas, the first Veggie Christmas video, Saint Nicholas lacks a countertop scene and takes place in a small town where all of our characters are simply themselves. It’s Christmas Eve, and this special opens much the same way as that one did – with hyperactive children eagerly anticipating the stuff they will get when the big day arrives. Chief among them is Junior Asparagus, who is extra excited because his grandparents have given him money to buy himself something. Oh, the decisions! Meanwhile, Laura Carrot is down because her dad, a deliveryman, has a busted truck, which means he can’t finish his route before Christmas and can’t get a Christmas tree either. The Christmas Eve service at the nearby church is about to begin, but before it does, Bob the Tomato decides that now would be a good time to tell Junior, Laura and all the other children with Christmas on the brain just what Santa Claus has to do with Jesus.

Bob and Larry the Cucumber are more involved narrators here than in most Veggie videos. We see them inside the story, even occasionally interacting with the characters, and what’s more, Larry has an endearingly annoying habit of constantly interrupting Bob in order to “move the story along” – even though he has no idea where the story is going – and make the setting more Christmassy. Bob is telling the story of Saint Nicholas, and if he had the narration to himself, Greece – to which we get a great introduction in my favorite of the video’s songs – would be appropriately balmy, but Larry can’t resist adding a little snow, and that’s just one of his amusing embellishments. While there are many elements to this story that stray far afield from Nicholas’s established history, the basics are there, and if Junior and his friends are any indication, that’s still a lot more than most kids would be familiar with.

A new character, a burly fellow with a thick accent who looks to be some type of squash, appears in both the modern portion of the story and the ancient one as an antagonistic figure. Nicholas is an entirely new character too, as is his father. The only major characters, aside from the narrating Bob and Larry, to be incorporated into the story are Petunia as a nun who teaches Nicholas about the joy of giving and Mr. Lunt – also the star of the Silly Song (or, rather, Helpful Humanitarian Song) – as Octavius, a close friend of Nicholas’s family who later helps Nicholas in his efforts to secretly distribute money to a needy family. Inventing a local bully intent on preventing such acts of generosity ups the action factor and the need for secrecy and allows for more intense and humorous moments. For instance, Nicholas feels the need to disguise himself, so he and Octavius go out in a series of amusing costumes. Later, as Nick is making an escape after his last big act of kindness, his sheep-drawn vehicle stretches across the sky so that they are silhouetted against the moon and look just like Santa and his reindeer.

Larry is the voice of all of Christmas’s contemporary trappings throughout the video. While the kids pipe up with their ideas of what Christmas is all about, Larry keeps trying to find ways of tying Nicholas more directly to Santa and of trying to make the setting of his story feel more festive. That’s how we end up with Christmas lights adorning several ancient Grecian residences, and it may also account for the parade of classic Christmas songs that turn up here with new lyrics. Some of Larry’s speculations are just plain hilarious, and I love the cozy reindeer sweater that he sports for a large portion of the video. I also love the way Bob sneaks in one of my favorite lines from The Toy That Saved Christmas.

This is a video that acknowledges that even devout Christian kids tend to get really worked up about Santa Claus. Saint Nicholas isn’t about trying to excise Santa from Christmas altogether, but it does make two major points: that Christmas is, first and foremost, about Christ, and that Saint Nicholas was a model of the sort of generosity that Christians should feel called to exhibit, and not just at Christmas. As the video’s loveliest song says, we should give not in an effort to feel good about ourselves but because we feel happy already and want to share our blessings with others. One thing I noticed is that Jesus comes up in this video far more than any other. I’m pretty sure that even includes An Easter Carol. Most of the Veggie videos talk about God a fair bit, but few of them mention Jesus. Hence, although in some ways this is one of the silliest Veggie videos I’ve seen, it’s also one of the most spiritually grounded.

Saint Nicholas is a great video that embraces both the serious and fun side of Christmas. It introduces some terrific new characters and incorporates several underused characters from videos past, including little Annie, a soft-spoken, bespectacled leek who, of all the VeggieTales characters, reminds me most of myself. I’m sure that this is one that I’ll be pulling out again in Christmasses to come. I’m only sorry it took me this long to watch it!

Hilarious Performances and Sage Speeches Make Christmas in July a Gift

I love Netflix, the Internet DVD rental service that has been so helpful to me in expanding my movie knowledge, but at times I find it frustrating. This is especially true this time of year. From mid-November on, I have a keen interest in watching Christmas movies, but Netflix has no category set aside for seasonal flicks. The only way for me to browse such movies is to enter a Christmas-related keyword and hope for the best. This means that I’ve wound up with a lot of movies with “Christmas” in the title, the latest of which isn’t even a Christmas movie. However, despite getting off to a somewhat shaky start, it is quite a cute movie, so I don’t really mind the lack of seasonal connection.

Christmas in July, written and directed by Preston Sturges, is a short movie, barely more than an hour long. Released in 1940, it’s a black and white film that focuses upon Jimmy MacDonald (Dick Powell), a rather hot-headed young man obsessed with the thought of winning a slogan contest for a coffee company. I watched this just after watching That Thing You Do!, the fun Tom Hanks film about an Erie-based one-hit wonder band’s swift rise to fame, and I had to laugh when I realized the character’s name was Jimmy, as that’s also the name of that movie’s ultra-serious songwriter. This Jimmy reminded me a lot of him initially. He’s a sourpuss, he doesn’t seem very attentive to his girlfriend and he’s obsessed with making weird puns that nobody else really gets. I knew there was a romantic storyline, but I assumed Jimmy was the typical jerk boyfriend and that the main character would be a sweet guy who Jimmy’s current girlfriend would realize was much better for her. I was surprised, then, when I realized that Jimmy was the main character.

My biggest complaint with the movie would have to be this abrupt shift in characterization. For the first ten minutes or so, he comes across as argumentative and dismissive, and I found myself wondering why sweet, demure Betty (Ellen Drew) ever got together with him in the first place. And then he mentions his mom. And suddenly, he’s this incredibly sweet Mama’s boy who just wants to give his impoverished mother and his girlfriend the finer things in life. This desperation to do well by them is what drives him to such obnoxious behavior. He’s just stressed to the max. Still, the shift is so abrupt and complete that it gave me whiplash. Could’ve been handled a bit better if you ask me.

The movie’s premise is that, as a prank, some of Jimmy’s coworkers decide to send him a phony telegram informing him that he’s won this contest. Everything is so disorganized that when he goes in to claim the check, the president of the coffee company doesn’t question it, and Jimmy’s amazing streak of luck continues. It’s pretty silly and totally dependent on the complete incompetence of several people. Maxford House coffee company has been building up to a huge coffee slogan contest for ages, but on the day of the big announcement of the winner, they still haven’t chosen one, and their communication with the guy in charge is abhorrent. Everything about this setup, which is established early in the movie, exposes this company as very poorly run indeed. What ridiculous lack of planning!

But this is a comedy, so that’s okay, and Raymond Walburn is hilarious as Dr. Maxford, who, like J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man movies, always seems about two seconds away from having a coronary. He revels in shouting at his underlings in the most animated of language, often employing strange metaphors like “a gang of horse whistles who wouldn't know a slogan from a poke in the eye with a stick!” When he’s not busy blowing a gasket, his dry sarcasm is just as funny.

Ernest Truex is a bit more restrained as J. B. Baxter, a higher-up at Jimmy’s company. He does have quite the temper, and he’s jumping to quick conclusions when we first see him, getting all worked up over Jimmy’s display of euphoria in the workplace. When he realizes why he’s so happy, however, all is forgiven, and Jimmy actually gets a promotion because of it. If he could win such a prestigious contest, then he must be good at coming up with slogans, even if they don’t make a lot of sense to Mr. Baxter. He’s a funny character because there’s so much artifice in what he does. Jimmy impresses him because somebody rich and important awarded him a prize, and he’s more inclined to trust that person’s opinions than his own. He’s a nice enough guy, a bit of a softie underneath a lot of bluster, but he’s a good example of what can be wrong with the world of business.

While Dr. Maxford is my favorite character by virtue of how very entertaining he is, the character I like the most is probably Jimmy’s immediate boss, the very level-headed E. L. Waterbury, who serves almost a Dumbledore role in this movie as he tries to mentor the jittery Jimmy. His little speech to him toward the beginning has deep resonance today in a time of economic crisis.

“I used to think about $25,000 too, and what I'd do with it. That I'd be a failure, if I didn't get a hold of it. And then one day I realized that I was never gonna have $25,000, Mr. MacDonald. And then another day... a little bit later - considerably later - I realized something else - something I'm imparting to you now, Mr. MacDonald. I'm not a failure. I'm a success. You see, ambition is all right if it works. But no system could be right where only half of one percent were successes and all the rest were failures - that wouldn't be right. I'm not a failure. I'm a success. And so are you, if you earn your own living and pay your bills and look the world in the eye.”

A good thing to remember.

The title comes from the scene in which Jimmy, having received his check, decides to play Santa Claus and buy presents for everybody in his neighborhood, an act of extravagant generosity that I wouldn’t have thought capable of that snappish grump in the opening. During this scene, one character refers to another as Hitler, and the name Mussolini is later tossed out. I found this interesting, considering the fact that World War II was just heating up at the time that this movie came out.

Christmas in July is a light-hearted movie about ambition and luck and where the two meet. It doesn’t have much to do with Christmas, but if you don’t mind a bit of silliness, it is pretty entertaining.

Versions of A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is so popular, it just keeps finding its way into movies...

Jimmy Stewart Shines in The Shop Around the Corner

It’s been a decade since I first saw You’ve Got Mail, the charming Tom Hanks / Meg Ryan film about a pair of bookstore owners who are fierce competitors in their day-to-day lives but are falling in love with each other online. For most of that time, my friend Libbie has been telling me that I really need to see The Shop Around the Corner, the movie of which You’ve Got Mail is a remake. We finally watched it together this week, and I concur that it’s a lovely film, and with a Christmastime setting to boot.

Jimmy Stewart has long been one of my favorite actors, for many of the same reasons that Tom Hanks is, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that he occupied the role Hanks did in You’ve Got Mail. It’s especially endearing to hear his character, Alfred Kralik, confide to his friend that he hopes the correspondent with whom he is falling in love isn’t too pretty, since a girl like that surely wouldn’t be interested in a plain-looking fellow like him.

Mr. Kralik is the senior salesperson at the store owned by kindly but frazzled Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan). For the most part, it’s a cozy work environment, and it helps that Kralik’s best friend, humble family man Pirovitch (Felix Bressart), is also employed there. True, he does have to put up with the foppish Vadas (Joseph Schildkraut), whose superior airs, coupled with his brown-nosing in the boss’s presence, are grating. But it’s a pretty nice situation for him until Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) shows up. He and Klara don’t get along very well at all, and most of the blame rests on her shoulders for the animosity she displays to him. His attempts to be civil are of little consequence.

Little does he know, at least initially, that Klara is the pen pal who writes to him with such passion and intelligence. When he answered her ad in the newspaper, he was merely looking to better himself by finding someone with whom he could expound upon intellectual topics. He hadn’t counted on falling in love. But by the time they finally agree to meet, he’s quite smitten, and more than a little worried that he’ll fall short of her expectations. When a perplexing work crisis immediately precedes his long-awaited date, it cements his insecurity, leading him to stand her up, though he intends to send his regrets with Pirovitch. That is, until Pirovitch takes one look at the woman waiting at a table with a carnation and announces that she and Klara are one and the same.

As in You’ve Got Mail, then, it’s the guy who has the upper hand, spending about half the movie well aware of the identity of his correspondent, while she has no idea. While his initial reaction is one of indignation, and her treatment of him when he goes inside to talk to her is deplorable, there’s a marked change in how he interacts with Klara after that. He is all kindness and consideration - except when he’s playing mind games with her in regard to her mysterious correspondent, who has explained his absence at their date and is back to writing her lengthy, romantic letters.

You’ve Got Mail replicated this aspect of the movie fairly faithfully, except that Ryan’s character, while having more reason to be vitriolic toward Hanks’, never treats him with the contempt that Klara lavishes upon Kralik. I don’t know that I can blame Sullavan, who zooms through her lines like the Micro-Machine Man, for her character’s lack of likeability, but one can’t help thinking that Klara is getting the better end of the deal. At first, I thought her rather enjoyably plucky, especially in her creative way of selling a cigarette case to a woman before she had even secured a position in the shop, but later, I found some of the barbs she flings at Kralik to be unnecessarily cruel. I actually found myself thinking of Kate on LOST, particularly in The Moth, when she sneers at Sawyer, who is trying to do something helpful for a change, “You’re actually comparing yourself to Jack?” Clearly, Klara views Kralik with that same degree of distaste, while she thinks her pen pal, like Jack, can do no wrong. As with You’ve Got Mail, I found myself almost forgetting that Kralik was both people, so different was Klara’s reaction to him on paper and in person; once I saw her she finally begin to develop some real affection for the flesh-and-blood Kralik, I bemoaned the fact that she was still going to choose this mysterious pen pal when such a warm, wonderful guy was right in front of her.

The movie is probably at its most fun when Kralik uses his additional knowledge to plant seeds of doubt in Klara’s mind about the suitability of her secret love. His teasing is witty, and at times I might even say merciless, but considering what she’s dished out to him, I think she has a little emotional distress coming to her. Besides, it’s a clever way to deconstruct this vision of perfection he won’t be able to live up to and gradually show Klara that in reality, he is a man worth loving, whatever his faults may be.

This is a romance, and primarily a chick flick, I’d imagine, since Jimmy Stewart is so much more swoon-worthy here than Margaret Sullavan. But it’s also a sweet story of friendship and apprenticeship. Pirovitch is kind, practical and loyal, the sort of friend that anyone would want to have. Meanwhile, Mr. Matuschek, after falsely suspecting his most cherished employee of grievous misdeeds, comes to realize just how much Kralik means to him and the extent to which his employees have become his family. In some ways, the movie is as much about his relationship with Kralik as Klara‘s, which adds a tender father-son dimension mostly lacking in You’ve Got Mail.

This film came late in the career of director Ernst Lubitsch, who considered it the movie of which he was proudest. Meanwhile, it’s one of Stewart’s earlier films; I don’t think I’ve watched any of the movies he made before 1940, so seeing him at his most youthful was another plus for me. If you like his performances or if you found You’ve Got Mail as enjoyable as I did, you’ll want to take a peek at The Shop Around the Corner.

A Little Family Expands and Changes in The Christmas Box

One Christmas ten years ago, my gifts to my immediate family members included a video for each of them. Little did I know that we would receive a DVD player that Christmas, making the videos I bought the last ones that would be added to our family collection, aside from a few we couldn’t resist snagging from video store close-out sales. One of those movies was The Christmas Box, which I got for my mom despite the fact that neither of us had seen it. The warm-and-fuzzy back-cover blurb and the presence of The Waltons‘ Richard Thomas were enough to convince me this was Mom’s kind of movie, and mine as well.

We watched The Christmas Box that year and enjoyed it, but we never pulled it out again until this year, when my friend Libbie came over on Christmas and was in the mood to watch a holiday movie. Out of the many in our collection, this one jumped out at her, so we popped it in. While it’s not iconic like A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life, it’s a very enjoyable film.

Directed by Marcus Cole, written by Greg Taylor and based on a book by Richard Paul Evans, this made-for-TV movie focuses on the Evans family, which includes workoholic dad Richard (Thomas), compassionate mom Keri (future Supermom Annette O’Toole) and adorable Jenna (Kelsey Mulrooney). Richard owns a moderately successful ski shop and is on the verge of expanding, but at the moment finances are tight, so Keri convinces him to let her apply for a job as a live-in housekeeper for elderly, uppity Mary Parkin (Maureen O’Hara). This means a move for the whole family into her mansion, but Richard doesn’t much like it because a shiver runs down his spine whenever she casts her imperious eyes upon him.

This is a very quiet movie in which there are essentially only four characters to keep track of. Some side characters, such as Mrs. Parkin’s lawyer and Richard’s business partner, turn up briefly, but they are of little consequence. This is all about how the Evanses and Mrs. Parkin relate to each other.

As Martha Kent on Smallville, O’Toole very quickly became one of my all-time favorite TV moms. Here, she displays most of the qualities that make Martha so endearing. She is devoted to her child and her overworked husband, though she has no qualms about letting him know when she thinks he is in the wrong. A naturally kind and considerate woman, she quickly develops a rapport with her employer, even as Mrs. Parkin maintains a professional distance. Little Mulrooney’s part requires little of her beyond being cute, and in that she succeeds entirely. A sweet little girl, Jenna seems to have inherited her mother’s way of looking at the world.

But it’s Mrs. Parkin and Richard who change the most over the course of the movie, so their roles are the most compelling. O’Hara offers a mix of intimidation and Irish wit as she adjusts to her new boarders and tries to knock some sense into Richard, of whom she makes a special case once she grows attached to the family. Thomas, meanwhile, retains some of that old John-Boy charm, but it doesn’t manifest itself much until the latter portion of the movie. In the beginning, his obnoxious manner is thoroughly convincing.

It seems to me that after I watched this the first time, I read The Christmas Box, and I found that the titular object was much more integral to the plot of the book than the movie. I think that Taylor could have more effectively incorporated that. On a related note, the trippy sequences involving Richard’s dreams of a youthful-looking angel almost feel like an afterthought.

Mostly, though, The Christmas Box is an engaging, intimate look at four people in a difficult situation coming to a more peaceful state of mind with one another’s help. If you like your Christmas movies warm and tender, this is one box you’ll want to open.

Seven-Year-Old Emma Kragen's Vision Hits DVD in The 12 Dogs of Christmas

A couple of years ago, I happened upon The 12 Dogs of Christmas, a cute and simple book that parodies The 12 Days of Christmas by having each day bring dogs of a different breed. Seven-year-old Emma Kragen came up with the concept, while three adults helped with photographing dogs and providing background illustrations. When I found that this book had inspired a movie, I found it hard to imagine what kind of film could come out of a mere listing of dogs of various breeds. I put it in my queue, expecting something pretty silly. After two years on the list, it finally made its way to my mailbox this month, and I must say that while it was silly at times, it was better than I anticipated.

The 12 Dogs of Christmas is a live-action family film set in the 1930s, with a running time of nearly two hours. It stars Jordan-Claire Green as Emma O’Conner, a plucky 12-year-old from Pittsburgh whose out-of-work father sticks her on a train to a town from his past, giving her the address of “Aunt Delores” and a promise to collect her by Christmas. Emma soon finds out that Delores (Bonita Friedericy) is not her aunt but her father’s former flame. She’s still got some pretty bitter feelings toward him and can’t believe his audacity in dropping his daughter on her doorstep.

Naturally, she eventually agrees, albeit reluctantly, to allow Emma to stay with her, though she insists upon her finding a job so she can pay for her food. She even thinks she has the perfect job for Emma - as lackey for the scuzzy local dogcatcher (John Billingsley), who has amorous intentions toward her. But Emma, despite initially professing a dislike for dogs, soon finds herself in league with Mike Stevens (Adam Hicks), a boy who, along with his mom Cathy (Susan Wood), is working diligently to undermine the dogcatcher at every opportunity. His position is especially nefarious because his brother, the mayor (Richard Riehle), in the movie’s most absurd plot point, has outlawed the owning of dogs within city limits, considering them a nuisance. So any dog he finds inside the city is fair game.

This is a direct-to-video movie that is sometimes a little over-the-top and slapsticky and relies on a couple of dubious premises. On the whole, however, it’s polished - infinitely more so than Dear Santa, the low-budget disaster of a movie Netflix last sent me - and the actors, though mostly unfamiliar to me, did their jobs well. I especially enjoyed Riehle, who I’ve seen in several projects, most notably Office Space. He provides a charming mix of pomposity and decency for the mayor. I also loved Eric Lutes, who guest starred in a memorable episode of Frasier, as the football coach who takes over direction of the children’s Christmas program at the last minute, leading him to team up with piano-playing Cathy. His sweet, bumbling manner is most endearing, making him my favorite character in the movie. It was also fun to see Austin Powers‘ Mindy Sterling as a harsh but not altogether unreasonable administrator.

The two young leads are unremarkable but effective. They don’t come across as cheesy, except perhaps Hicks in one scene, though Green is a bit wooden at times. In general, though, they do a good job. Friedericy and Billingsley are both over-the-top, but the former is mostly entertaining, while the latter is mostly grating. The movie, directed by Kieth Merrill and written by Merrill and Steven Paul Leiva, seems mostly historically accurate and reminds me of Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, which is set during the same time period.

Of course, one might argue that the entire purpose of this movie is to find an excuse to assemble a film version of Emma Kragen’s vision, and that does happen, in the form of the kids’ Christmas pageant. It’s a little too convenient that Cathy’s makeshift shelter just happens to contain exactly the right numbers of each type of dog to pull that off. That is the movie’s second-most-unbelievable plot point, but I’ll let it slide since it’s the scene around which the film was written.

The DVD includes a behind-the-scenes peek at the movie that mainly consists of poorly edited interviews with the actors. Lute’s segments are the best, as he infuses his responses with considerable wit. The kids - who include Hicks, Green and Alisha Mullally, who plays their classmate Miranda - seem giggly and nervous, and there’s something a bit eye-rolling about Green’s explanation that, in essence, the true meaning of Christmas is that dogs are lovable.

But dogs are lovable, at least to many of us. If that includes you, The 12 Dogs of Christmas might just bring a smile to your face.

Dear Santa Is a Perfect Storm of Movie Maladies

My biggest frustration with Netflix this time of year is that, despite all of its many categories and sub-categories, there is no adequate way to bring up a list of holiday films, which are pretty much all I want to watch from mid-November through the end of the year. That means that I end up putting a lot of dubious stuff in my queue just because the title happens to contain an especially Christmassy keyword. That was the case with Dear Santa.

When it arrived, I couldn’t even tell whether the movie was live-action or animated; given the total lack of actors’ names in the description, I suspected the latter. As it turns out, however, none of the names were listed because none of them is anyone I have ever heard of. Only one member of the cast even has a photo up on IMDb, and most of them have only a couple of other film credits. After watching this, it’s easy to see why.

Dear Santa is helmed by Peter Stewart, a prolific director with a dozen pseudonyms, perhaps because he’s hoping to hide his identity from potential viewers. If this holiday flick is any indication of the quality of a typical Stewart film, I can’t imagine too many people seeking out a second movie with his name attached. The list of titles alone makes me skeptical about his ability to choose worthwhile projects; something tells me Bikini Girls from the Lost Planet and Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds didn’t pick up much Oscar buzz. By contrast, screenwriter Hamilton Underwood has only one other movie to his credit: the abysmal-looking My Ghost Dog.

Picture, if you will, a workaholic father with an idealistic son who still believes in Santa Claus. Suddenly, Dad finds himself putting on weight and growing facial hair with startling rapidity. He’s fallen into an overwhelming task - being Santa. Sound familiar? This movie came out in 1998, when The Santa Clause was still fresh enough in everyone’s mind that I doubt anybody could miss the blatant similarities. The movie also borrows liberally from A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life, only serving to remind viewers how much better those movies were.

D. L. Green is Gordon, a seedy car salesman who has promised his family a snowy retreat for Christmas. Little does he realize that his boss, Mr. Ambrose (Robert Quarry), intends for him to stick around and compete with another dealer for a big promotion. Vacation’s off, and while he tries to brainstorm new ways of pushing shoddy cars onto unsuspecting customers, he experiences the effects of his son Teddy’s (Harrison Myers) letter to Santa asking for something to help his dad recapture the Christmas spirit. That something, Santa (Bennett Curland) decides, is to make him one of his special helpers. So no, he isn’t completely replacing the big guy himself, but the effect on his life is much the same.

Guiding Gordon through his Christmas nightmare is Lillith (!), a street-smart, five-foot-something elf (probably because the budget didn’t allow for the effects to make her seem pint-sized). Tena Fanning plays this wise-cracking sidekick, while young Ariana McClain is Morgan, Teddy’s schoolyard confidante. Other characters include Kirk (Richard Gabai), Gordon’s long-suffering assistant, and Mrs. Sanders (Edrie Warner), the kindly operator of a center for disenfranchised children. Of all the human cast members, her performance comes the closest to being tolerable; she’s the only actor in the bunch I’ve seen elsewhere, and her rather hokey showing here seems primarily due to shoddy writing. Quarry is an over-the-top, stereotypical mob boss, but at least he is mildly entertaining, and Gabai ekes out a laugh now and again. But the only participant without a hint of cheesiness is, in a brief, uncredited appearance, Teddy’s cat.

IMDb won’t tell me how old Myers is, but he seems to act at least a couple of years younger than he looks. This appears to be on the cusp of adolescence, but he still believes in Santa wholeheartedly, and he spends his afternoons on makeshift skis, hitting the bedroom slopes in a flurry of paper snow. There’s a whiny, needy quality to this lad that grates on me, though most of the adults are much more annoying. That certainly applies to Fanning as Lillith, who is forever scolding Gordon and usually peppering him with what she believes are witticisms rather than the cringe-worthy puns we know them to be.

And even she isn’t as obnoxious as Green, who comes across as the poor man’s Ben Affleck, smirking his way through every scene - or is that a grimace as he tries to choke down the unpalatable dialogue? Worst of all is Debra Rich as Gordon’s wife Carla. Early in the movie, she subjects us to the most outrageous display of hammy overacting I’ve ever seen - though, to be fair, I doubt anyone could have avoided looking at least a little silly when uttering the laughable lines Underwood penned. The cherry on top of this unfortunate sundae is the execrable special effects, which include a sleigh that makes its journey sans reindeer, simply zapping in and out of the space-time continuum, which almost seems to eliminate the need for a sleigh at all. Oh, and the several-minutes-long flashback just before the end of the movie recapping the film thus far, just in case somebody fell asleep and missed most of the critical plot points (which, come to think of it, is a pretty plausible scenario).

I’m not in the business of bashing movies. It’s in my nature to be charitable, especially to a family-friendly film, and a Christmas movie to boot. But I simply can’t think of any reason to recommend this movie, unless you’re an aspiring filmmaker who could use a boost of confidence. My brother made much better movies than this in high school. I suspect most middle-schoolers with a video camera could as well. In other words... Dear Santa, this movie stinks.

Two Boys in the 1950s Navigate Friendship and Prejudice in The Angel Doll

In 2003, the new television show that most excited me was Joan of Arcadia, a drama about a teenager who has regular conversations with God, who appears to her in a variety of human guises. In a way, it served as a replacement for Touched By an Angel, the warm and fuzzy procedural about angels who receive assignments to improve the lives of a variety of people. I found myself thinking about both shows thanks to The Angel Doll, a Christmas movie set in the 1950s that focuses on one boy’s desire to buy a very special present for his sick sister and his friend’s efforts to help make that happen.

The Touched By an Angel similarities are easy to spot, since the main object is an angel and little Sandy Black (Lindsey Good in her only film role) is obsessed with angels. Paper angels cover the walls of her bedroom, and she never tires of hearing The Littlest Angel, especially as read to her by her big brother Whitey (Cody Newton). Most of all, the basic storyline reminds me of A Christmas Miracle, the Touched By an Angel episode about a young man and the terminally ill little girl he loves like a sister.

Whitey’s family is new in town. His dad is dead and his overwhelmed mother (Diana Scarwid) has taken up with an abusive boyfriend. They’re on the brink of destitution. Initially, he resents Jerry Barlow, a white bread kind of kid with an idyllic home life, but when the boys begin to share a paper route, it doesn’t take long for them to become friends. This movie is primarily the story of that friendship. While we occasionally see Whitey without Jerry, it really is the latter boy whose perspective we share. The tale is framed by his recollections as an adult (Keith Carradine) many years later.

I recognized Carradine in his brief role, but there was something even more familiar about Jerry as a youngster. It wasn’t until I finished the movie that I caught actor’s name and discovered that he was Michael Welch, who played Luke, Joan’s super-geeky younger brother in Joan of Arcadia. He’s much younger in this movie than in the series, even though they both came out the same year; the filming must have been done in the late 1990s, with the release presumably delayed because of the death of director Alexander Johnston. Both boys give solid performances, but Welch is especially good, showing us the subtle changes that occur within this boy as he becomes more attuned to the bitter realities of life without losing his sense of hope or devotion to his friend.

The most pressing issue of the time is a polio epidemic. The army has set up camp nearby to treat cases, and though they try to assure the public that being in proximity to someone with polio will not result in one catching the disease, many families are panicking. Whitey, his mom and his sister are disregarded enough because of their poverty; once it becomes clear that Sandy has polio, many townspeople shun them entirely, fearing the repercussions of close contact. Meanwhile, she keeps getting sicker, and Jerry’s own dream of getting a bike must be put on hold as he throws his efforts into helping Whitey get an angel doll for her for Christmas.

The Angel Doll is an old-fashioned story that deals with problems that many children still must face. It reminded me of Kit Kittredge in that it is relatable historical fiction presented in an appealing and family-friendly way. There’s a quaint charm to the town when it isn’t in the grip of paranoia; a kindly shopkeeper played by Pat Hingle adds to the Mayberryish feel. Aside from a whispered campout conversation involving flirtatious women on the boys’ paper routes, a shadowy glimpse of a heated argument between Mrs. Black and her boyfriend and a peek inside the makeshift hospital full of debilitated patients, everything in this movie is appropriate for all ages, while it’s presented artfully enough that the whole family ought to be able to enjoy it together. You have to be able to tolerate a bit of schmaltz to enjoy The Angel Doll, but if that’s not too tall an order, it’s a wonderful movie to curl up to on a chilly winter evening.

Mixed Nuts Is a Mixed Bag

I’ve been counting on Netflix to give me some new Christmas movies to watch this season. So far, the results have been less than inspiring; that continued last night when I watched Mixed Nuts, a 1994 Nora Ephron movie starring Steve Martin and Rita Wilson, along with Madeline Kahn, Adam Sandler, Anthony LaPaglia, Juliette Lewis, Rob Reiner and Liev Schreiber. It’s an A-list cast, but this cacophonous movie misses as often as it hits.

Martin is Philip, who’s in charge of a suicide hotline and is in danger of being evicted. He’s a decent guy, though he’s rather testy and completely oblivious to the fact that his earnest employee Catherine (Wilson) has a crush on him. His other employee, cranky Mrs. Munchnik (Kahn), is all too aware of it. Although she is snappish and rude, it’s easy to feel sorry for her because this particular Christmas brings her a string of abominably bad luck.

Then again, nobody in this merry band of misfits is having a great day. Street-smart fashionista Gracie (Lewis) is hugely pregnant and at odds with her volatile boyfriend, Felix (LaPaglia). Transvestite Chris (Schreiber) feels lonely and unappreciated. Eccentric ukulele player Louie (Sandler) just wants Catherine to slow down long enough to listen to the song he wrote for her. But in this movie, nobody stands still for long. The characters move swiftly from one crisis to another, getting to know each other better while trying to preserve their own sanity.

There are a lot of fun moments in the movie, from a recurring joke with a fruitcake baked by Mrs. Munchnik to the elegant dance performed by Chris and an obliging Philip. On the whole, though, while I found Martin’s character to be mostly sympathetic, he usually wasn’t particularly funny. Probably the most consistent source of humor is Kahn, who gives off a sort of nightmare mother-in-law vibe. Meanwhile, Wilson is irresistibly sweet as Catherine, who is idealistic and always anxious to help others, even as she bemoans her lack of romantic attachments.

There’s a certain tenderness in the explosive relationship between Gracie and Felix, but both are so unstable that it’s easy to imagine some type of disastrous outcome if their relationship continues. Chris is likable enough but feels out of place much of the time, while Louie, like most of Sandler’s characters, is endearing but incredibly annoying. And there’s often so much going on at once that it’s easy to miss what certain characters are saying.

Mixed Nuts is a decent holiday flick, but it’s not one to warm the cockles of your heart, and I doubt it’ll make you bust a gut either.

Make the Yuletide Gay Could Almost Pass for a Hallmark Movie

My marathon of rather obscure Christmas movies suggested by Netflix continued yesterday with this year’s Make the Yuletide Gay, written and directed by Rob Williams and featuring a cast of mostly unknowns, at least to me. The major exception to that was Gates McFadden, who, as any good Trekkie knows, played Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Her presence intrigued me, but she only appears for a few minutes, and in a role that is less sympathetic than most.

Olaf Gunnunderson (Keith Jordan) is a popular, self-assured college senior in a committed relationship with Nathan Standford (Adamo Ruggiero), the sensitive son of a pair of distant socialites (McFadden and Ian Buchanan). Olaf, or “Gunn” as he’s more generally known by his peers, is looking forward to returning home to his doting midwestern parents, even though they don’t know he’s gay and he has no intention of telling them. Nathan’s relationship with his parents is more strained, and when they casually announce at the last minute that they’ve won a Christmas cruise for two and he’ll have an empty house to look forward to, he decides to pay the Gunnundersons a surprise visit, initially unaware of just how much Gunn’s parents don’t know.

In many ways this plays like a Hallmark movie, with its emphasis on the joys of a tight-knit family and one young man’s struggle to come to terms with differing aspects of his identity. Nathan, who feels completely alienated from parents who never seemed to care about him much to begin with, longs for what Gunn has, while Gunn is afraid his parents will stop loving him if he bares his soul to them. The movie is Not Rated, but there’s very little profanity and nothing much more overt than a lip-lock, though more double entendres than Austin Powers could shake a stick at give the movie an inconsistent tone.

Additionally, while Kelly Keaton and Derek Long make the Gunnundersons, Anya and Sven, endearing and give us a good sense of the family dynamic, their performances are often a bit uncomfortable. Keaton speaks with an exaggerated Wisconsin accent that often grates, while Long spends most of his time looking spaced out. Tighter editing probably would have helped a bit in making some of their dialogue a little less awkward.

Nonetheless, Sven, for all his eccentricities, is enjoyably laid-back, and he’s not quite as out-to-lunch as it often appears, as demonstrated particularly well in a quiet conversation with the lonely Nathan. Anya is the most colorful character in the movie, and she can scarcely speak without giggling, but her maternal warmth is expansive and extends to the boy Olaf hastily introduces as his roommate. Thrown into the mix are Abbey Mancuso (Hallee Hirsh), a neighbor Olaf once dated, and her spiteful mother Heather (Alison Arngrim), who has an odd ongoing feud with Anya that really doesn’t add anything to the movie except an opportunity to make a sly reference to Nellie, Arngrim's mean-spirited character in Little House on the Prairie.

While I think some of the acting could have been better and I could have done without the innuendo, on the whole I found this movie to be a pretty appealing look at two very different families and the young men at their centers.

Kris Kristofferson Offers Authenticity Amidst Artifice in Christmas in Connecticut

When I think of Arnold Schwarzenegger, my first thought is Terminator, quickly followed by several other adrenaline-soaked action flicks. Then, of course, I remember that he is the governor of California, a position that certainly caught me by surprise the first time I realized he’d taken it up. Today, thanks to Netflix, I discovered another hat he wore: director. He only directed one movie, and it was made for television and a remake to boot. But I found 1992’s Christmas in Connecticut, written by Janet Brownell, a thoroughly charming movie.

Elizabeth Blane (Dyan Cannon) is the host of a television cooking program. She’s like Martha Stewart, with perfect culinary and homemaking skills. Except it’s all a charade. She doesn’t have a husband, children or grandchildren. Her assistant Josie (Kelly Cinnante) does all the cooking for her. Everything in her life is manufactured, and while she doesn’t find it very satisfying, it seems to be working okay for her until her seedy agent Alex (Tony Curtis) discovers that Jefferson Jones (Kris Kristofferson), a forest ranger who is a national hero after saving a boy lost in a snowstorm, has a copy of her cookbook. In fact, it’s one of the few possessions he still has, since while he was off on his rescue mission his cabin burned down. Smells like a Christmas special in the making!

Alex quickly finagles a plan to film a live special with Elizabeth and Jefferson, preceded by several days during which he will stay with her and her makeshift family in the cozy Connecticut home she pretends is hers. Alex will pose as her husband, while Josie, with her aspiring actor husband Tyler (Gene Lythgow) in tow, will be Elizabeth’s daughter. They’ve also rented a pair of grandkids for the occasion; savvy Kevin (Jimmy Workman) knows how much is on the line and never misses an opportunity to do a little blackmailing, while infant Melissa forms a surprising bond with Tyler. Helping maintain some sanity is the serene housekeeper, Norah (Vivian Bonnell).

Jefferson is bemused as he wanders into this chaotic scene. He’s a humble man, quiet and polite, and though it’s clear from his bewildered expressions that he finds some of their behavior baffling, he doesn’t pass judgment on this crazy crew, nor does he seem to suspect that it’s all an act, at least not initially. I’ve been a fan of Kristofferson ever since I saw him in 1996’s TV movie Tad, in which he pulled off a magnificent portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. He’s really the one who makes this movie so watchable. In a house full of artifice, he breathes authenticity. Besides, I’m a real sucker for forest rangers, and he carries himself like a true outdoorsman.

Basically, Jefferson gets to be the straight man here. These sophisticated New Yorkers may look on him as a bit of a yokel, but they’re the ones who wind up with all the slapstick moments, particularly oafish Alex and overdramatic Tyler. And since Elizabeth is at the heart of this whole thing, she keeps getting thrown into ridiculous situations as she is forced to try to live up to her reputation. As she begins to develop very real feelings for her guest, however, she begins to wonder whether it might be time to drop the act altogether.

I have to give credit to Chuck Colwell for his cinematography, as the whole movie, especially the outdoor scenes, looks absolutely gorgeous. The image of Elizabeth and Jefferson gliding down the road in a horse-drawn sleigh as powdery snow falls is about as close to a perfect Currier and Ives picture as one could ask for. There’s also some lovely music courtesy of a group of carolers. Of course, some elements of the movie are pretty silly, most notably the idea that Elizabeth could convince the world at large for years that she had a family when all it would take is one person to blow her cover. She sure couldn’t pull it off today. And some of the scenes are relentlessly stapsticky. But the movie is balanced enough that I found I didn’t mind instances of trees falling over or people tripping over marbles strewn across the floor. And I found David Arnott’s brief role as the spastic director trying to salvage Elizabeth’s disastrous Christmas special completely hilarious.

I’m not sure why Arnie directed just one movie and then gave it up. But if he decides to take another bash at it after his Governator days are over, Christmas in Connecticut has convinced me that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

James Earl Jones Impressively Narrates the Unimpressive Nine Dog Christmas

Over the past week, I’ve been scouring Netflix for Christmas movies and have come up with a few, most of which I’ve never heard of. Last night’s oddball film was a little 2001 animated flick called Nine Dog Christmas. The one mark in the movie’s favor going into it was the presence of James Earl Jones. With him serving as the austere narrator, surely it couldn’t be too bad...

This hour-long Christmas tale has two main threads that converge before long. In one, there’s a group of eight hard-on-their-luck mutts who wind up in the clutches of a nefarious Frenchman named Pierre (Randy Rice), who travels around in a sleigh pulled by his long-suffering dog Frenchie. As he carts them off to try to make a quick buck off of them, the pooches get to know each other. Australian Snowplow (Rice) and Scottish MacGregor (Thomas Garner) have authoritative airs that make them the ragtag gang’s de facto leaders. Among the rest, one is loopy, and two are rapidly falling in love with each other. Each dog has his or her own personality quirks.

Meanwhile, at the North Pole, Santa (Pat Fraley) has run into a problem, though he doesn’t realize it. The reindeer are down with the flu, and the elves scramble to find replacements before the boss finds out. Neurotic head elf Buzz (Scott Hamilton) is particularly distraught, and he enlists the aid of cheerful novice Agnes Anne (Russi Taylor) to find a new team of sled pullers in time. Whose path should they cross but those dogs in Pierre’s clutches? But getting them to Santa and training them for their takeover isn’t as easy as they might think.

I found the animation and voice work in this special to be pretty enjoyable. We hear a variety of different accents: French, Spanish, Scottish Australian. Several actors voice multiple characters, but that is never obvious, as each voice is entirely distinct from the others. Jones makes a fantastic narrator, just as one would expect, and many of the actors lace their vocal performances with humor.

The story, however, is rather weak. Replacing reindeer with dogs doesn’t seem like such a good idea, and why go so far away to recruit? Couldn’t the elves simply round up some moose or polar bears? I would think that anyone living in proximity to the North Pole would be happy to lend Santa a hand. For that matter, if size is so unimportant, the elves could probably pull the sleigh themselves. Then again, they might be just a little bit small for the job. Additionally, the conclusion of the movie, while rather heartwarming, makes little sense, as it involves Santa getting dragged back to the North Pole by a tow truck.

Pierre makes a rather entertaining villain who seems modeled after McLeach, the poacher from The Rescuers Down Under, right down to the disgruntled animal sidekick and our last shot of him in the movie. I found it hard to keep most of the dogs straight, but it’s not really all that important; the majority of the pooches are just filler to get to that magic number that is the same as the reindeer. I like intrepid Agnes, voiced by one of the regulars on the wonderful kids‘ show Jakers!, and Buzz has a couple of good moments, but the rest of the elves are inconsequential.

There’s also the matter of the music. The over-the-top love ballad seemed like something out of the cringe-worthy From Justin to Kelly, and the repeated song about “sticktoitivity” is a strange combination of rap and power ballad that doesn’t seem to gel at all and annoyed my mom hugely. Gary Morris, who wrote the songs, has won a Grammy for his work before, but that background is not evident here.

It wasn’t a terrible way to spend an hour, but I’ve certainly seen better Christmas specials. Unless you’re really hard up for something Christmassy, I’d skip Nine Dog Christmas.